Scientists from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center have developed a new stem cell-based technology in animals that mends broken bones that can’t regenerate on their own. Their research was published today in the journal Science Translational Medicine and was funded in part by a CIRM Early Translational Award.

Over two million bone grafts are conducted every year to treat bone fractures caused by accidents, trauma, cancer and disease. In cases where the fractures are small, bone can repair itself and heal the injury. In other cases, the fractures are too wide and grafts are required to replace the missing bone.

It sounds simple, but the bone grafting procedure is far from it and can cause serious problems including graft failure and infection. People that opt to use their own bone (usually from their pelvis) to repair a bone injury can experience intense pain, prolonged recovery time and are at risk for nerve injury and bone instability.

The Cedars-Sinai team is attempting to “bridge the gap” for people with severe bone injuries with an alternative technology that could replace the need for bone grafts. Their strategy combines “an engineering approach with a biological approach to advance regenerative engineering” explained co-senior author Dr. Dan Gazit in a news release.

Gazit’s team developed a biological scaffold composed of a protein called collagen, which is a major component of bone. They implanted these scaffolds into pigs with fractured leg bones by inserting the collagen into the gap created by the bone fracture. Over a two-week period, mesenchymal stem cells from the animal were recruited into the collagen scaffolds.

To ensure that these stem cells generated new bone, the team used a combination of ultrasound and gene therapy to stimulate the stem cells in the collagen scaffolds to repair the bone fractures. Ultrasound pulses, or high frequency sound waves undetectable by the human ear, temporarily created small holes in the cell membranes allowing the delivery of the gene therapy-containing microbubbles into the stem cells.

Image courtesy of Gazit Group/Cedars-Sinai.

Animals that received the collagen transplant and ultrasound gene therapy repaired their fractured leg bones within two months. The strength of the newly regenerated bone was comparable to successfully transplanted bone grafts.

Dr. Gadi Pelled, the other senior author on this study, explained the significance of their research findings for treating bone injuries in humans,

“This study is the first to demonstrate that ultrasound-mediated gene delivery to an animal’s own stem cells can effectively be used to treat non-healing bone fractures. It addresses a major orthopedic unmet need and offers new possibilities for clinical translation.”

You can learn more about this study by watching this research video provided by the Gazit Group at Cedars-Sinai.